Thursday, November 29, 2007

Expert Interview

Since I am researching the differences between Wal-Marts in America and Wal-Marts in China, I wanted to interview someone who has been in both types of Wal-Marts. Pretty much everyone I know has been to a Wal-Mart in America, but I only know one person who has actually been in a Wal-Mart in China. This person is Buck Goldstein, the same professor I have that I interviewed for the digitization group project. Buck Goldstein is a professor in the Entrepreneurship Minor, and every summer, a portion of the students in the minor travel the China for 9 weeks and work there and take classes there. When Buck was in China helping to set up this study abroad in China program, one of his students said, "I'm going to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things, would you like to come?" Buck said "of course" and went to a Wal-Mart in China with one of his students who also happened to be fluent in Chinese.

Buck's experience in the Chinese Wal-Mart is congruent with the research I have been conducting on Wal-Marts in China. He said that the Wal-Mart was in the middle of the city he was in (Beijing) and that it was a multi-story building. He said that the store was jam packed, way more crowded than any Wal-Mart he had ever been in in America. He also said that there were vastly different items for sale such as a wet market full of fish and turtles that they would buy to eat over there. During my research, I have discovered similar findings. The major differences between the two types of Wal-Marts comes from the major differences between America and China.